Irving ISD officials blame its dismal showing on the new STAAR exams on double testing by other districts and bad state data. But it remains to be seen whether Irving’s scores spell trouble for the district or the state.

When the Texas Education Agency rolled out the new standardized testing program last year, it allowed districts to test advanced students twice in different grade levels.

For example, under STAAR a sixth-grader who took seventh-grade math has to take the seventh-grade math exam. But last year, the state allowed districts to also give that student the sixth-grade math exam.

The TEA would then count both scores, boosting the district’s average if the student did well.

The state plans to ban double testing this year, but officials don’t know how many districts took advantage of it last year or how it affected data the agency is using to design STAAR’s scoring system.

Unlike some of its neighbors, Irving ISD didn’t double test. The district’s student assessment director, James Rambo, believes enough districts did to account for Irving’s poor showing relative to the state average.

“What was best for the kids?” Rambo asked earlier this month as he presented last year’s elementary and middle school STAAR scores to the school board. “Everybody says we’re testing too much, but then the districts turned around and double tested.”

He said Irving chose not to double test to avoid overburdening students. After running roughly even with the state average under the old state test regime, TAKS, Irving fell behind in every elementary and middle school subject on the first round of STAAR tests.

With slides full of charts, Rambo tried to show the board how double testing might account for the gap.

Under the last year of TAKS, Irving matched the state average on the eighth-grade math test. Under STAAR last year, it fell 11 points behind.

But nearly 40 percent of Irving’s eighth-graders — some of its best students — weren’t counted on the test. Enrolled in more advanced courses, they took the algebra or geometry tests instead of eighth-grade math, and overwhelmingly passed.

According to Rambo’s data, the district’s pass rate for the eighth-grade math exam would have climbed from 65 to 73 percent if Irving had double tested 921 eligible eighth-graders, assuming they performed as well as they did on their geometry or algebra tests.

Double testing in that subject would have shrunk the district’s deficit with the state average from 11 points to three.

“Statistically, we’re not on an even playing field,” Rambo told the board. “Are we really looking at apples to apples? Or is it a fruit basket?”

TEA has no idea

The TEA doesn’t know, because the agency didn’t ask districts if they double tested last year.

“They have no idea how many kids were tested above grade or tested more than once,” said agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson. “There’s really no way to say how it may have or may not have affected the scores.”

She said the agency allowed the practice last year “to gather as much data as we could.” It decided to ban it this year to save costs, and because of pushback from parents and school districts about the burden it put on students.

But Culbertson said officials don’t think double testing skewed the data they used to set the passing scores on STAAR exams, which districts will eventually be penalized for performing poorly on.

A check of Irving’s neighboring school districts, however, found that thousands of students were double tested.

Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Highland Park, Lewisville, Plano and Richardson officials said they double tested last year — mostly on the eighth-grade math test, where all those districts gained against the state average compared with their last two years under TAKS.

“The complete lack of knowledge related to the standards for the new assessment [STAAR] and AYP [the federal rating system] potential impacts led us to this decision,” wrote Cloyd Hastings, testing director for Carrollton-Farmers Branch, which double tested 525 middle school students in math.

For similar reasons, Plano double tested 2,372 students on the eighth-grade math STAAR and beat the state average by 14 points.

Among districts that didn’t double test, Dallas and Coppell both lost 11 points in eighth-grade math against the state average compared with their last two years under TAKS — even worse than Irving’s showing.

But Fort Worth, Arlington, DeSoto and Grand Prairie didn’t see much change, and Frisco gained five points despite not double testing.

Meanwhile, Irving’s huge deficits in other subjects weren’t shared by its neighbors.

Across the board

Irving lost ground against the state in nearly every subject tested — even elementary school subjects where fewer students are typically eligible for double testing.

In seventh-grade math, Irving’s small deficit with the state under the finalyears of TAKS plunged to a 22-point deficit under STAAR. Sixth-grade math looked worse, and sixth-grade reading not much better.

But neighboring districts that didn’t double test saw most of their scores in those subjects hold steady or even improve.

As a possible explanation, Rambo said Irving doesn’t advance elementary school students into middle school courses. Other districts might, which could raise their scores.

As he walked out of the school board meeting last week, Rambo promised that this year’s STAAR data — due in the summer and free of double testing — would look much better for Irving.

“The state will drop; Irving will go up,” he said. “There’s a good possibility we’ll get up to even or even surpass” the state.

But afterward, he acknowledged there was simply no way to know how much double testing affected last year’s results.

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